The Nightmare
by joshiferdallas
Summary: Emma and Regina's domesticated life barely contained any arguments since Regina proposed, but when one petty argument causes the pair to go to bed on bad terms Regina finds herself facing her biggest nightmares.


**Title: **The Nightmare  


**Rating:** T

**Pairing:** Emma/Regina (established SwanQueen)

**Warnings/triggers: **There is a brief mention of death and suicide during Regina's nightmare that is barely described, but it's there and this is the warning!

**Disclaimer: **Unfortunately I don't own Once Upon a Time or any of it's characters

**Summary: **Emma and Regina's domesticated life barely contained any arguments since Regina proposed, but when one petty argument cause the pair to go to bed on bad terms Regina finds herself facing her biggest nightmares.

**A/N:** I wrote this during a college class today because the topic of nightmares occurred and I instantly had an idea. I hope you all enjoy it and I would love to hear your feedback in the reviews!

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"Emma, grow up and stop being pathetic," Regina hissed through gritted teeth, trying to make her voice sound intimidating without shouting at the blonde and waking Henry. "Just apologise and we can forget all of this."

"Why should _I_ be apologising when _you_ were in the wrong?" Emma's voice was a lot more brutal than Regina's, but had little impact compared to the brunette's. "I wasn't the one that refused to spend time with our kid because he wanted to play on the games console with one of us!"

"That's what you think this is about?" Regina's voice became louder and actually began to scare Emma. "Emma, you called me '_an evil bitch_' because I needed your help with dinner and took the controller from your hands. Then you sulked because you didn't like what I had made for dinner, and then to top it all off, you muttered to our son about me being _'a pain in your ass'_. How _charming_ of you, Emma. You're acting like an overgrown _child_! I know that's what your parents want, but that's not exactly a good example for Henry, is it? If you don't like the way I live and act, Emma, maybe you should just leave because we all know your parents would _love_ to baby you until the day they die!"

"Regina, you obliterated the controller because it vibrated in your hand when you pulled it from mine!" Emma defended, still feeling hurt by Regina's comments on her childlike demeanour. "Besides, the only reason they would baby me forever is because _someone_ cast a curse that kinda forced them to ship me to Maine. Oh, wait; I know who that someone was... _No_. You know what? I'm sick of you trying to change who I am just because you don't like a few things that I do. When you proposed to me, you vowed to love me unconditionally, but clearly those words meant nothing to you."

"Emma..."

"No, Regina." Emma put her hand up to stop her, knowing how much she had actually hurt the brunette but didn't wish to continue discussing the topic when they were both so tired and irate. "I'm going to bed."

Before Regina could even attempt to stop her, Emma had spun on her heel and began slumping up the staircase and into their bedroom. Seeing her fiancé giving up and walking away made Regina's heart ache. She wanted nothing more than to follow Emma and apologise, but she knew that the blonde would ignore her apology by assuming that they were just empty words. Besides, Emma only ever walked away from a fight when she was losing. Even though Regina had called the blonde 'a pathetic excuse for a princess' and accidentally slapped her, she couldn't help but feel that with all of the occurrences that they were both equally to blame.

Instead of quickly calming herself and joining Emma in their room with the hope of double sided apologies, she retreated into her study and helped herself to a large tumbler of scotch in hope that the burning liquid would help to stop the unwanted tears streaming down her face. Before their engagement, Regina revelled in her little spats and bickering sessions with Emma, but now they merely shone a light on how domesticated they were quickly becoming. And Regina knew that Emma and a domesticated lifestyle were not two things that had ever been paired together, so the blonde could run in fear at any moment.

_No_. She couldn't think like that. If Emma was going to run because of an argument she would have left years ago. Wouldn't she? The more Regina drank her scotch, the more she began questioning things; then it dawned on her. Regina had told Emma to leave. Twice. Her gut filled with guilt and the tears that had eased were back. They were empty propositions but with Emma she never knew what the blonde was actually going to take to heart. What if she had only gone to bed to climb out of the window and scale down the wall? What if she was only in bed now so she could wake while Regina was sleeping and sneak out? So many 'what ifs' filled her mind until she could no longer think straight.

With a deep sigh and a ragged outlet of breath, Regina left her half drank tumbler of scotch on the coffee table in the middle of the room and carried herself up the staircase and quietly into the master bedroom. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, she spotted a sleeping Emma curled up in the fetal position on her side and clutching a pillow tight to chest. A lump in Regina's throat began to swell as she noticed the dry tear tracks down the blonde's face. The two had never really made each other cry whilst in an argument, but this made Regina realise that the two of them needed to have a serious talk about what had happened that evening. She attempted to swallow the lump and distracted herself as she changed into her silk pyjamas.

Regina tried to overlook Emma as she glided around the Queen sized bed in the middle of the room, but completely failed. Everywhere she looked she found elements of Emma; her hair ties lay strewn across the dressing table they shared, her jeans were draped over the high-backed chair in the corner and there was an ever growing collection of photos of the three of them gathering on top of the several chests of draws that lined one of the walls in the room. Emma hadn't even left and Regina was beginning to miss her infuriating little blonde.

_This will all be over in the morning._ She reassured herself, hoping that a goodnight's sleep would actually allow their argument to blow over. They had never actually gone to bed on bad terms having vowed early on in their relationship that any form of domesticated arguments would have to be resolved before they got into their bedroom.

Sliding into the bed beside Emma and not snuggling herself into the blonde was another thing that gave Regina's guilt a massive pang. Resisting any possible temptations of reaching out to Emma, Regina mimicked Emma's fetal position on her own side of the bed and fought away any thoughts that tempted themselves into entering her mind. After what seemed like forever, Regina finally fell into a deep sleep.

_Slowly going from pitch black to an overwhelming amount of light, Regina found herself stood on top of a little podium in front of a mirror with several maids plumping, altering and fitting the wedding dress that hugged her figure almost perfectly. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a little girl with long dark locks and an innocent smile across her face. Snow._

_"Wow… You are most certainly the fairest of them all!" The young child beamed, taking in everything that Regina was._

_"Thank you, dear." Regina's voice was completely monotone and almost sarcastic as she stood down from the podium, ushering the maids out of her chamber. The remainder of the conversation with Snow became blurred together, that was until her mother entered the room, of course. Cora glided in with a sinister grin on her face and a glimmer of pride in her eyes._

_"Snow. You need to go to your room and help with the packing. Your father wants you ready for the journey, and we're heading to your castle first thing in the morning." Cora said as she approached Snow and Regina._

_The child shared a few words with Cora before leaving Regina's chamber with a skip in her step. Just the sight of her happiness made the fury inside Regina build up faster than it ever had before. All she wanted to do was to follow Snow and instantly rip out the incessant little child's heart and crush it in her fist._

_"Well-played, dear. You're learning." Smiled Cora as she reached for Regina's hand._

_"I should change. I wouldn't want to ruin the dress before my big day."_

_"I am so proud of you." Cora insisted, as Regina began to turn away from her but then it hit her. Within the blink of an eye, Regina knew how she had ended up in this situation. Without Daniel. Without a choice. Without everything._

_"You knew the King was traveling through our land, didn't you? That steed with Snow on it… It didn't go wild on its own, did it?" Saying her thoughts aloud confirmed her theory entirely. Her mother had planned it all._

_"I have no idea what you're saying." Cora bluffed, hiding every emotion that was humanly possible._

_Regina smirked at her mother and lifted her chin as she turned to walk away and said with a sinister voice: "I should've let her die on that horse."_

_As soon as the words left her mouth, the image in Regina's mind began to twist and warp into something completely different. Her dream had started out as a memory, but now? Now it was rewriting her past; changing everything that had happened until she found herself riding Rocinante through a vast and open field towards Daniel. He stood beneath a huge oak tree with a huge smile on his face as she quickly approached him at full speed. She flung herself off the horse when it came to a stop and let her legs carry her to Daniel's open arms._

_The beginning of their conversation was a blur, just like the conversation she had had with Snow in the previous memory, but then, at the mention of magic, the conversation became clear once again._

_"Have you not seen her magic? Th-The real question is, what can't she do?" Regina asked as she held Daniel in her arms._

_"Who cares about magic? True love is the most powerful magic of all. It can overcome anything." __Daniel said with a smile, placing a light touch on Regina's cheek._

_Then she heard it. The scream. It echoed through her mind as if the noise was piercing her brain._

_"Help! Somebody help me!" A young girl on the back of a large horse that was completely out of control came flying through the field. The child gripped onto the horse as tight as she could, knowing that with just one slight of hand she could fall and instantly become trampled under the horse's hooves._

_"Shh. Someone's here." Regina whispered to Daniel, pushing him around the tree and out of sight._

_"Regina, we should help." Daniel fought the grasp Regina had around his arms, refusing to let the young girl on the horse plummet to her death._

_"No way, it's far too dangerous for us. I am not losing you, Daniel. Especially not from saving an idiot child."_

_As soon as the words left her lips the screaming stopped, but a deafening thud echoed around the large landscape. The young girl on the horse had fallen directly beneath it and lay completely still on the floor as the horse continued to gallop off into the woodland. A gasp left both Daniel and Regina's lips as they raced towards the fallen child in the field. Their arrival showed something Regina really didn't want to see. The child lay on her back with her eyes open and her head deep in a puddle of her own blood. Her arms and legs were sprawled in awkward positions; instantly telling Daniel and Regina that the girl had been brutally killed._

_After staring at the dead girl on the floor in horror, Regina was quickly ripped from Daniel and the scenery around her. For a moment everything went black before swirling images drowned her mind of what her life would have been like if Snow had died on the horse. Daniel was still dead, she didn't become queen, her mother disowned her and the last image that went through her mind was Emma and Henry being erased from all of her memories until she found herself standing on the edge of a tall building in the enchanted forest. Then, as she fell, everything began to break apart. She was being woken._

"Regina!" Emma shouted, trying to shake a crying and screaming Regina from her nightmare. "Regina, baby wake up."

Regina's eyes instantly shot open at the sound of Emma's panic struck voice. Her tears continued to stream down her face, but she had managed to stop screaming and fell into the hold that Emma had her in.

When the blonde first heard whimpers she didn't know what to do, then when Regina actually began sobbing and thrusting her arms and legs around she instantly knew that the woman was having a nightmare. Nothing had ever seemed to scare Regina, but when Emma saw her in this situation, she couldn't help but feel instantly petrified. As the first shriek left Regina's mouth, Emma threw her arms around her fiancé and began rocking her in her arms in an attempt to wake her.

"Emma..." Regina sighed through broken sobs as she looked up to the blonde who was holding her tightly to her chest.

"Baby, I'm here," Emma reassured in a hushed tone, wiping away the tears on Regina's face with the pad of her thumb. "It was just a nightmare. You're okay. Do you want to tell me about it? You're supposed to talk about what you saw to prevent them from happening again."

"I...I saw..." She stuttered through her sobs before taking a deep breath and trying again. "I saw a memory at first. It was the day of my wedding dress fitting. It was also the day that made me start to hate your mother. It was the day that I wished I hadn't saved Snow from her horse."

Emma nodded and knit her brow with somewhat sympathetic eyes as if to ask Regina to continue whenever she was ready. The brunette took another deep breath and continued.

"Then everything changed. I was with Daniel on the day I saved your mother, but this time I didn't save her. I let her die, Emma. I watched her fall and get trampled beneath the horse." Her violent sobbing continued and Emma merely squeezed Regina tighter into their embrace, knowing all too well that that wasn't the end of her story. "Then...then I saw my life where I didn't save Snow. Daniel still died, I was still unhappy, I didn't become queen and most of all I didn't have you. Because Snow died, you never existed. Henry never existed. And when you woke me I was about to end everything."

"Oh, Gina," Emma sighed, feeling her heart tighten in her chest at the thought of both Regina and Henry not existing in her own life. "Baby, everything is okay. You did save Snow, you did become queen, you did cast the curse and you did find me. Henry and I aren't going anywhere, I promise."

Regina looked up to Emma with tear flooded eyes and a broken-hearted frown on her face. The dream had completely tormented her and brought all of her fears in front of her faster than anything she had ever experienced.

"I'm so sorry." Regina whispered, placing her hand on Emma's cheek.

"Why on earth are you apologising?" Emma gave a light-hearted chuckle and kissed Regina's sweaty forehead.

"For everything I said to you this evening. I didn't mean any of it; it's just sometimes you really frustrate me." Her tears had stopped and she couldn't help but return Emma's little chuckle.

"And you frustrate me too." Emma smiled, threading her fingers through her fiancé's hair. "The things we both said were empty threats and were nothing more than worried words. Regina, I can see it written all over your face that you're worried that I'm going to feel too tied-down and comfortable and that I could run at any point, but I need you to know that I'm not going to do it. However tough things get I'm always going to be here for you and Henry. There is no chance that I'm going to suddenly up and leave unless the two of you are with me. Oh, and I don't think you're an evil bitch by the way, but sometimes you can be a tiny bit of a pain in my ass."

Regina let out an honest laugh at Emma's final statement and felt her heart swell in the knowledge that Emma had promised never to leave her no matter what. It was something she needed to hear and Emma knew it.

"I don't really think you're a pathetic excuse for a princess, either." Regina admitted with an apologetic smile. "I don't think you're a very good one, but you're my princess and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Emma let out a loud and honest laugh before she leaned in towards Regina, lightly pressing her lips onto the brunette's. Their kiss was long, passionate and completely honest. Neither woman wanted to pull away, but when the lack of oxygen hit them, they slowly pulled away and pressed their foreheads together with matching smiles on their faces.

"I love you, Regina Mills." Emma whispered, refusing to take her eyes away from Regina's.

"And I love you too, Emma Swan."

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**I hope you all enjoyed this quick little one-shot enough to leave a little review! Thanks for reading and thank you for the continued support!**


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